With a self-generated drumroll and fanfare, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner's longtime columnist Dermot Cole announced in his August 28 column he has decided to leave the News-Miner after 35 years, and take a job with an online paperless news medium, the Alaska Dispatch, based in Anchorage. Cole, however, will work from his home in Fairbanks, one of the perks of the cyber revolution, as what he calls a "state" reporter, whatever that is, and columnist.
Curiously absent is any word from the News-Miner's publisher expressing any level of regret for Cole's departure from the only newspaper for which he has ever worked since graduating from the University of Alaska Fairbanks with a journalism degree back in the mid-70s.
He did mention, however, that the publisher "has asked me to stay, but I decided to make a change... No one at the newspaper is pushing me out, waving at the exit or suggesting that the jig is up."
Cole's long tenure at the News-Miner - 35 years, 21 of them as a columnist, perhaps the longest such stint in Alaska newspaper history - was interrupted only by a brief hiatus in 1988-89 to take a job with the Associated Press in Seattle. But that quickly ended when "My wife and I made the return trip after reaching the belated conclusion that (Fairbanks) would be a better place to raise our children. We have never regretted that decision."
In announcing his departure, Cole wrote in his farewell column: "An illness in the family and the approach of a pivotal birthday (his 60th, next month) have prompted me to take stock of my situation and start out on a new adventure. This is something I have to try," adding: "Leaving an institution where I have had the pleasure of working for more than 35 years is not easy, but I’m at an age where if I don’t try something a little different now I may never get the chance.
"I began working here at age 22 in 1976, a callow youth who expected to stay a year or two before moving on to bigger and better things." He added: "I attribute my longevity at the News-Miner to a good working environment and readers who encouraged me at times, tolerated me on many occasions and allowed me the privilege of becoming a small part of their daily routine.
"I have long been grateful that my ambition to leave Fairbanks gradually turned into a more focused desire to do the best job I could at something I loved in Alaska. And I wanted to learn how to write." Self-deprecatingly, he adds:" Millions of words later, learning to write remains my overarching goal."
In the comment segue to his column, 63 readers bade Cole goodby. About two-thirds of them expressed regrets at his leaving and reflected sentiments like this: "Best wishes Dermot! I'm going to miss your column. I didn't always agree with you, but appreciated your perspective and attention to important community and State issues. I loved the recognition you gave deserving individuals and the warm human interest stories."
Or:"Dermot, I want to thank you for your integrity, clear writing, and community-building all these many years. You exemplify the kind of qualities that I seek out when perusing a local paper.
Although my family and I hitched ourselves to some migrating geese a few years ago (for the tropics of Whidbey Island), Fairbanks in many ways will always be home. Thank you for helping to make it such a good place to grow up.
Or: "Dermot's column was the one thing everyone in Fairbanks read out of the NM. Agree with him or not, you always stopped to read him. Rarely a day went by that I didn't have a conversation with someone that included the line, 'did you see Dermot's column today?'
He was a great source for answering those nagging little questions like what is that new building going to be? He was always quick to give a pat on the back to those who helped make the community a little bit better place to live. He also was willing to call those out that needed to be.
I wish him all the best in his future endeavors. I know he will be great there. I also know the NM will be truly be the news minus without him.
A few others were not so kind, even cruel. RextrailBigfoot, for example, dissing Cole's perceived liberal, anti-corporate bent, sarcastically commented: "If I was Dermot I would apply for jobs with Al Jazeera or Pravda and get away from the US corporate controlled media."
Or: "It's too bad that Dermot never had any real-world job experience. He would have been more well-rounded. A newspaper tends to have the viewpoint of the Collective because news must appeal to the community as a whole. Dermot never saw a problem that didn't have a government solution. He will fit in well at the Alaska Dispatch."
Or: "This proves what we've always suspected: Alice doesn't have a brain. "State reporter?" Nope. Dermot cannot "report" anything except his neurotic feelings on a given subject."
Dermot and I have a shared history. I toiled as a reporter, editor and columnist at the News-Miner in the late 1960s and early '70s, and later at Tom Snapp's All-Alaska Weekly. During his student days at the UAF where he was on the staff of the campus newspaper, I wrote a column disparaging what I perceived to be the poor quality of the journalism department at the university. I've forgotten the details, but I recall that Dermot indignantly wrote back demanding to know my qualifications for making those judgments.
There's no question that Cole served a valuable purpose at the News-Miner, despite a pronounced tilt to the left. His talents and prolixity as a journalist, despite his shortcomings, are undeniable. He'll be impossible to replace. Most News-Miner readers regret that, a few others applaud it. After I left Alaska, I relied heavily on his reporting and writing to keep abreast of public affairs in Alaska, while occasionally correcting his historical and, sometimes, grammatical perspective.
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